Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32571945›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020

Humans navigate with stereo olfaction.

Yuli Wu, Kepu Chen, Yuting Ye, Tao Zhang, Wen Zhou

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
25citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

25 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. The Sensory Basis of Planarian Behavior.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Review
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Virtual Reality for Spatial Navigation.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023
    Article
  14. Review
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Olfactory Sensing and Navigation in Turbulent Environments.Annual review of condensed matter physics · 2022
    Article
  18. How the evolution of air breathing shaped hippocampal function.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022
    Article
  19. Active sensing in a dynamic olfactory world.Journal of computational neuroscience · 2022
    Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Yuli WuState Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, China.
Kepu ChenState Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, China.
Yuting YeState Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, China.
Tao ZhangState Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, China.ORCID 0000-0003-2988-4076
Wen ZhouState Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, China; zhouw@psych.ac.cn.ORCID 0000-0001-6730-2116

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Human navigation relies on inputs to our paired eyes and ears. Although we also have two nasal passages, there has been little empirical indication that internostril differences yield directionality in human olfaction without involving the trigeminal system. By using optic flow that captures the pattern of apparent motion of surface elements in a visual scene, we demonstrate through formal psychophysical testing that a moderate binaral concentration disparity of a nontrigeminal odorant consistently biases recipients' perceived direction of self-motion toward the higher-concentration side, despite that they cannot verbalize which nostril smells a stronger odor. We further show that the effect depends on the internostril ratio of odor concentrations and not the numeric difference in concentration between the two nostrils. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral evidence that humans smell in stereo and subconsciously utilize stereo olfactory cues in spatial navigation.

Indexed as

Mental Navigation TestsAdultCuesFemaleHumansMaleNasal CavityOdorantsOlfactory PerceptionOptic FlowPhotic StimulationSmellYoung Adultbinaral disparityheading perceptionolfactory navigationoptic flow

Identifiers

PMID32571945
PMCPMC7355004

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.